Resource Book Created Specifically to Help You...
 
 Administrators
 Social Workers
 Nurses
 Medical Directors
 All who work with challenging dialysis patient situations.
 
Practical Guidelines
Sample Policies, Forms, Agreements, and Letters
Over 250 pages

 Purpose of this Book
 Book Highlights
 List of 42 Sample Documents
 Unique Dialysis Environment
 Who Can Benefit?
 Book Author
 Table of Contents
 Book Preface

• Challenging Dialysis Patient Situations Defined
• Dialysis Staff Response Options Described
• Staff Professionalism and Boundaries
• Effective Patient Grievance Procedure
• Legal, Ethical and Regulatory Issues
• Good Customer Service Culture
• Patient Counseling
• Patient's Rights
• Sample Forms
• Sample Letters
• Sample Policies
• Sample Agreements
• Sample Contracts

1. Creating and Maintaining a Good Customer Service Culture and Attitude
2. Understanding the Nature of the Legal, Ethical and Regulatory Relationship That We Have with the Dialysis Patient
3. Understanding the Role and Responsibilities of the ESRD Networks
4. Defining Challenging Dialysis Facility Situations
5. Understanding the Factors Contributing to a Patient's Emotional Responses, Reactions and Choices
6. Establishing and Maintaining an Effective Patient Grievance Policy and Procedure
7. Understanding and Responding to Conflict in the Dialysis Setting
8. Understanding the Factors Contributing to an Employee's Emotional Responses, Reactions and Choices
9. The Importance of Staff Professionalism and Maintaining Proper Boundaries
10. Using Patient Satisfaction Questionnaires as a Conflict Reduction Tool
11. Understanding the Patient's Right to Make Choices Regarding His or Her Treatment
12. Dealing with the Verbal or Physically Abusive Patient
13. Counseling Steps for Dealing with the Challenging Patient
14. Involuntary Termination of the Relationship with the Patient
15. Understanding the Importance of Patient and Staff Education

• Release of Medical Liability for Patients Requesting Early Termination from Hemodialysis Form
• Release of Responsibility for Patient Driving Form
• Release of Responsibility for Low Blood Pressure/Danger of Driving Form
• Release of Responsibility for Eating While on Dialysis Form
• Release of Responsibility for Refusal of Saline Administration Form
• Violation of Facility Policy Form
• Missed Dialysis Time Form
• Suggestion / Comment Form
• Patient Meeting Preparation Form
• Patient Counseling Documentation Form
• Patient Grievance Form
• Complaint Investigation Form
• Documentation for Patient Termination Form
• Request for 'No Code' Status Form
• Withdrawal From Dialysis Directive Form

• Letter to New Patient
• Welcome to Our Dialysis Facility Letter
• Letter Accompanying the Patient Behavioral Agreement
• Letter Regarding the Abusive Patient
• Letter Regarding Counseling Session Advising of Counseling Time and Date
• Letter Regarding Non-Compliant Behavior
• Follow-up Letter on Group Counseling Session
• Letter to Patient Regarding the Results of the Complaint Investigation
• Letter to Patient Regarding Violation of Policies
• Letter to Patient Regarding Continued Violation of Clinic Policies and Procedures
• Facility Letter to the Network Regarding Termination of Patient Relationship
• Physician Letter to Patient Regarding Termination of Physician-Patient Relationship

• Treatment Expectation Agreement
• Contract for Continued Provision of Dialysis Services
• Request for and Conditions of Acceptance for Treatment Agreement

• Patient Policies and Procedures (for Distribution to the Patients)
• Instructions for Patients at Our Clinic
• Patient's Rights at Our Clinic
• Patient Suggestion Box Policy and Procedure
• Patient Services Committee Policy and Procedure
• Policy Regarding Eating and Drinking while on Dialysis
• Policy Regarding Patient Possessing a Weapon on the Premises
• Policy for Workplace Threats and Violence
• Guidelines Regarding Accepting a Known Threatening Patient
• Patient Complaint Resolution Policy (for Distribution to the Patients)
• Complaint Investigation Policy and Procedure
• Patient Request For Termination of Dialysis Policy

• Creating a Safe Environment
• Responding to Threat of Violence
• Resolving Conflict
• Using Good Communication as an Anger Defusing Tool
• Analyzing and Responding to the Patient's Needs
• Creating "Patient Friendly" Rules and Regulations

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Who Can Benefit from this Book?
The audience for this valuable resource guide includes administrators, social workers, nurse managers, and all other personnel in the dialysis clinic who have direct interaction with the patients. This book is designed to be a handy reference guide which should be available in every dialysis clinic. Also, it is a resource guide for creating appropriate documents need to deal with challenging patient situations at any dialysis clinic. An electronic version of the sample documents is included in the book so it is very easy to customize the documents for your exact needs.
 
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Book Author - Mary Rau-Foster, RN BS ARM JD
This book is written by Mary Rau-Foster, RN BS ARM JD. Mary is president and founder of Foster Seminars and Communications LLC. She is an attorney, an author, a nationally known speaker with an extensive background in medical malpractice and formerly a nurse (in nephrology). She conducts seminars and workshops on medical-legal issues, personnel issues and motivational topics.
 
Mary has also been trained in mediation and conflict resolution. Mary has served as corporate counsel and director of risk management in the healthcare field.
 

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Book Table of Contents

• Chapter 1 - Introduction
• Chapter 2 - The Nature of the Relationship with the Patient
• Chapter 3 - Role of the ESRD Networks
• Chapter 4 - Components of a Good Relationship with Dialysis Patients
• Chapter 5 - Staffing Issues in the Dialysis Unit
• Chapter 6 - Patient Satisfaction
• Chapter 7 - Policies and Procedures
• Chapter 8 - Grievance Procedures
• Chapter 9 - Some Patients are Difficult and Challenging…Why?
• Chapter 10 - Anger
• Chapter 11 - Conflict in the Dialysis Setting
• Chapter 12 - Workplace Violence in the Dialysis Facility
• Chapter 13 - Patient Behavior Analysis
• Chapter 14 - Dealing with the Disruptive Patient
• Chapter 15 - Sample Agreements
• Chapter 16 - Sample Forms
• Chapter 17 - Sample Letters
• Chapter 18 - Sample Policies
• Bibliography

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Book Preface
 
I have given talks on dealing with challenging patients throughout the country over the last several years. I was impressed with the willingness and desire of dialysis health care professionals to learn more about the causes of challenging behaviors and how to effectively deal with them. I listened as staff members and patients alike shared their stories about the problems, conflicts, and frustrations in the dialysis setting. At times, there was a sense of hopelessness as they described situations that seemed incapable of being resolved and conflicts that seemed intractable. Some dialysis staff members have felt the need to seek employment elsewhere due to unresolved frustrations or fear of abusive and threatening patients. Some patients describe the dread of going to a dialysis facility where the employee morale is low and the tension is high. They fear for their safety and well-being.
 
This book project came out of an awareness of the need for some practical suggestions on how to handle challenging patient situations. While there are no magical answers or formulas that can be used in each difficult situation, having guidelines and background information about challenging patient situations may be helpful to dialysis professionals. The primary focus of this book is aimed at developing an understanding of the causes and factors contributing to challenging patient situations. It is designed to be used as a guideline by dialysis facility staff. It was created with the intent of being an overview and, therefore, it is not intended to be an exhaustive treatment of the subjects presented in this book. Some of the topics received less attention than others. This should not be interpreted as assigning less importance or meaning to those topics, but only that the focus of this book was on other areas. To that end, the books and articles listed in the bibliography may provide the reader with the additional information needed or desired.
 
Recognizing that many facilities lack the time to be able to create tools that could be used when confronting and dealing with difficult patient situations, some sample policies, forms, letters, and agreements have been created and included in this book. To make these tools easier to use, they are also provided on a computer disk for quick access. These sample documents should be adapted to meet the individual facility's needs and to comply with the facility's policies, practices, or philosophy. It was our desire to create a book that would be helpful and beneficial to the dialysis staff. It was also our desire that implementing the suggestions in this book will help to improve the quality of patient-staff relationships and the dialysis environment. We trust that this will be the case at your facility.

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Cost and Ordering Information
 
"Dealing with Challenging Dialysis Patient Situations" Book is only $100.00 each (plus $10.00 shipping and handling).
 
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